Thursday, February 12, 2004
The passion of the Deaniacs
You know, in a way I'm glad Arianna lost her bid for Governor of California. Not that I think that she wouldn't make a better governor than the Groppenfeurer, she would have, it's that she has now returned to writting for Salon. Given a choice between Terminator 4 and Arianna on Salon, I'll lose T4.
Because she's one of the few people (along with Paul Krugman) who routinely hits the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned. And today's submission is another example of this. Her point is that the Kerry campaign needs to woo the Dean contingent, otherwise we will decamp. The problem is that I don't see it happen. Kerry isn't winning this election because of the grassroots, he's winning it despite the grassroots. The Democratic Brahimns, of which Kerry is one, view us Nader/Dean supporters not as disenchanted or disaffected, but as disloyal. The Democrats are entitled to our votes and unstinting, unquestioning, support.
The reason why the progressive wing of the party more or less uniformily went gaga over Dean is that he actually wooed us. Arguably to the point of hurting his campaign- I would argue, however, that to the current corporatist media, any wooing of the progressives is enough to hurt a campaign. Fortunately, this isn't a mistake the Kerry campaign is likely to make.
If Kerry loses in November, it'll be blamed on the disloyalty of the Dean supporters- causing a disruptive primary season that unnecessarily hurt the pre-selected candidate, and not supporting him after our candidate was defeated. Mark my words. What we actually do here and now is irrelevent, it'll be all of our fault anyways. It happened after 2000 (unlike the media, my long-term memory works just fine, thank you very much). If 2000 taught the Democrats anything, it's that progressives make good scapegoats.
Unfortunately, a Kerry win in '04 makes things even worse for the progressives. Reagan's win in 1980 was set up because of Ford's loss in '76. What would have happened if Ford hadn't lost in '76? A Kerry win will be touted that the media- and the Democratic voters- were right, that Dean was unelectable and that Kerry was. Of course, if Kerry loses, it'll be claimed that Dean would have lost even worse. It's just that the argument in this case is much weaker. Post hoc ergo propter hoc ("it happened after, therefor it was caused by").
The question of wether the country can afford another 4 years of Bush is not the question, I'd argue. Because it's currently not if we're going to have another four years of coporatist/conservtive christian rule, it's when- wether that particular alliance will regain power in '04, '08, or '12. Kerry representings nothing more than a time out. Unless we change something fundamental, we are going to have another four years of Bush, sooner or later.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
What is the real deficit?
If there is one thing that is consistant about the Bush administration, it's that their numbers never add up. But Bush never was a numbers person, he was more on an idea rat.
Which leads me to this news that the current $7.4 trillion dollar debt limit will have to be raised again come mid-summer. Remember that we hit $7 trillion just last December. This tells me the real deficit- the amount of money the goverment is having to borrow- is higher than even the astronomical $500 billion that's being reported- at least $600 billion, if not $800 billion.
This is rather like when we were being told that Iraq was costing us $4 billion a month- and yet we somehow managed to blow through $64 billion in only 6 months.
Kick me again- I might start to like it
It's been several days, so I'm finally cooled down enough to discuss this article in polite company.
I generally consider myself a generous friend. I have had, howver, people take advantage of my generosity. When this happens, I start saying "no". Some wake up and stop taking my generosity for granted. Others haven't forgiven me for "failing" them. But, in my experience, saying "no" is the only way to stop people from taking advantage of you.
As a liberal, I've been doing the Democratic party the favor of voting for them fairly consistantly. Consistantly enough that the Democratic party has started taking our votes for granted. The Democrats court "swing" voters- those who regularly tell the Democrats "no"- with great alacrity. Every election is full of talk of how the Democrats are going to woo the soccer moms or NASCAR dads. Liberals are expected to show up, vote the way we're told to, and not complain when the party does absolutely nothing to reciprocate. Can't we see how fundamentally important it is for the party to pander entirely to the swing voters?
Consider this: Nader voters are routinely blamed for putting Bush into power. But what about the people who voted for Bush? Heavens no- we can't blame them. Then they might not vote for us next time. But the liberals have an obligation to vote for Democrats no matter what the Democrats do.
This is even more pathetic when you consider how effective the Democrats have been at wooing the swing voters.
Well, Democrats, this is your 2004 wake up call. You've hit the snooze button at least twice so far- in 2000 and 2002. But I hate being taken advantage of. It stops now. Get used to the word "no" because you're going to be hearing it a lot from me.
And I refuse to accept any blame or guilt for what Bush has or may do. I didn't vote for the moron, nor am I going to- wether I vote for Kerry or no. Blame for the Bush presidency should lie squarely on the shoulders of the people who voted for him- where it belongs. If the Democrats want me to vote for them again, they can woo me, just like they woo swing voters.
They know where to find me. I'll be over here on the left.
Disney leagues with MS against democracy
Disney has signed on to Microsoft's DRM initiative, along with Time-Warner-AOL-We're-Beatrice. Disney wants to make sure no one can pirate it's content, like it pirated the content of Hans Christian Anderson, the Brothers Grim, and (it appears) Pixar. They don't want anyone else to be able to steal a swag the way they stole theirs.
I agree that I don't have the right to distribute someone else's copyrighted material against their wishes- I'm not one of those "information wants to be free" radicals. I'm even willing to admit it's open to debate wether I have the right to space- and time-shift copyrighted materials I have legitimate license to. But I still have two fundamental, basic problems with DRM.
The first is do I have the right to produce- and distribute under terms of my choosing- original work of my own? Me, Brian Hurt, a person who doesn't have a huge law department and several elected officials in my pocket. If you say yes, then there is no technical way to prevent piracy. If you say no, then freedom of speech has gone the way of the dodo, and democracy is following closely behind. Unfortunately, the media conglomerates have painted themselves into the corner of demanding that the mere possibility of piracy needs to be eliminated. Which is obvious- they sole value-add is distribution (especially the music industry). The internet is nothing if not an efficient distribution mechanism. And while the future may be good for artists and writers as a whole, it sucks if your sole purpose for existance just went away. I'm just not willing to sacrifice democracy on the alter of protecting the buggy whip manufacturers.
The second problem is the persistance of culture. All means of inscribing information degrades- what the computer programmers call "bit rot" is a fundamental function of entropy. Even words carved into stone slowly abrade away. Most of our current forms of distributing information have a life expectancy of at most decades. The earliest CDs are already degrading into unplayability. Content only survives the millenia if it is copied. The works of Plato, Aristotle, etc. only survive to this date only because they were copied.
If we eliminate the ability/right to copy our current works, we run the risk of waking up one day to discover we've lost whole eras of our culture. It will make the burning of the library of Alexandria look like a small mistake in comparison. Unlike Alexandria, it won't happen overnight. Certain titles, certain works, will simply become more and more rare. The death of the last dodo wasn't marked at the time- it was just a while later that someone looked around and said "hey, wait a minute- what happened to all the dodos?"
Speaking of Disney classics- is it still possible to get a legal copy of "Song of the South"? Is it comming out on DVD?
Unfortunately, this debate is not going on- the decisions are simply being handed down the way the big corporations, who don't care a whit about democracy or preserving culture, but instead care only about profits, want.
Because she's one of the few people (along with Paul Krugman) who routinely hits the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned. And today's submission is another example of this. Her point is that the Kerry campaign needs to woo the Dean contingent, otherwise we will decamp. The problem is that I don't see it happen. Kerry isn't winning this election because of the grassroots, he's winning it despite the grassroots. The Democratic Brahimns, of which Kerry is one, view us Nader/Dean supporters not as disenchanted or disaffected, but as disloyal. The Democrats are entitled to our votes and unstinting, unquestioning, support.
The reason why the progressive wing of the party more or less uniformily went gaga over Dean is that he actually wooed us. Arguably to the point of hurting his campaign- I would argue, however, that to the current corporatist media, any wooing of the progressives is enough to hurt a campaign. Fortunately, this isn't a mistake the Kerry campaign is likely to make.
If Kerry loses in November, it'll be blamed on the disloyalty of the Dean supporters- causing a disruptive primary season that unnecessarily hurt the pre-selected candidate, and not supporting him after our candidate was defeated. Mark my words. What we actually do here and now is irrelevent, it'll be all of our fault anyways. It happened after 2000 (unlike the media, my long-term memory works just fine, thank you very much). If 2000 taught the Democrats anything, it's that progressives make good scapegoats.
Unfortunately, a Kerry win in '04 makes things even worse for the progressives. Reagan's win in 1980 was set up because of Ford's loss in '76. What would have happened if Ford hadn't lost in '76? A Kerry win will be touted that the media- and the Democratic voters- were right, that Dean was unelectable and that Kerry was. Of course, if Kerry loses, it'll be claimed that Dean would have lost even worse. It's just that the argument in this case is much weaker. Post hoc ergo propter hoc ("it happened after, therefor it was caused by").
The question of wether the country can afford another 4 years of Bush is not the question, I'd argue. Because it's currently not if we're going to have another four years of coporatist/conservtive christian rule, it's when- wether that particular alliance will regain power in '04, '08, or '12. Kerry representings nothing more than a time out. Unless we change something fundamental, we are going to have another four years of Bush, sooner or later.
If there is one thing that is consistant about the Bush administration, it's that their numbers never add up. But Bush never was a numbers person, he was more on an idea rat.
Which leads me to this news that the current $7.4 trillion dollar debt limit will have to be raised again come mid-summer. Remember that we hit $7 trillion just last December. This tells me the real deficit- the amount of money the goverment is having to borrow- is higher than even the astronomical $500 billion that's being reported- at least $600 billion, if not $800 billion.
This is rather like when we were being told that Iraq was costing us $4 billion a month- and yet we somehow managed to blow through $64 billion in only 6 months.
Which leads me to this news that the current $7.4 trillion dollar debt limit will have to be raised again come mid-summer. Remember that we hit $7 trillion just last December. This tells me the real deficit- the amount of money the goverment is having to borrow- is higher than even the astronomical $500 billion that's being reported- at least $600 billion, if not $800 billion.
This is rather like when we were being told that Iraq was costing us $4 billion a month- and yet we somehow managed to blow through $64 billion in only 6 months.
Kick me again- I might start to like it
It's been several days, so I'm finally cooled down enough to discuss this article in polite company.
I generally consider myself a generous friend. I have had, howver, people take advantage of my generosity. When this happens, I start saying "no". Some wake up and stop taking my generosity for granted. Others haven't forgiven me for "failing" them. But, in my experience, saying "no" is the only way to stop people from taking advantage of you.
As a liberal, I've been doing the Democratic party the favor of voting for them fairly consistantly. Consistantly enough that the Democratic party has started taking our votes for granted. The Democrats court "swing" voters- those who regularly tell the Democrats "no"- with great alacrity. Every election is full of talk of how the Democrats are going to woo the soccer moms or NASCAR dads. Liberals are expected to show up, vote the way we're told to, and not complain when the party does absolutely nothing to reciprocate. Can't we see how fundamentally important it is for the party to pander entirely to the swing voters?
Consider this: Nader voters are routinely blamed for putting Bush into power. But what about the people who voted for Bush? Heavens no- we can't blame them. Then they might not vote for us next time. But the liberals have an obligation to vote for Democrats no matter what the Democrats do.
This is even more pathetic when you consider how effective the Democrats have been at wooing the swing voters.
Well, Democrats, this is your 2004 wake up call. You've hit the snooze button at least twice so far- in 2000 and 2002. But I hate being taken advantage of. It stops now. Get used to the word "no" because you're going to be hearing it a lot from me.
And I refuse to accept any blame or guilt for what Bush has or may do. I didn't vote for the moron, nor am I going to- wether I vote for Kerry or no. Blame for the Bush presidency should lie squarely on the shoulders of the people who voted for him- where it belongs. If the Democrats want me to vote for them again, they can woo me, just like they woo swing voters.
They know where to find me. I'll be over here on the left.
Disney leagues with MS against democracy
Disney has signed on to Microsoft's DRM initiative, along with Time-Warner-AOL-We're-Beatrice. Disney wants to make sure no one can pirate it's content, like it pirated the content of Hans Christian Anderson, the Brothers Grim, and (it appears) Pixar. They don't want anyone else to be able to steal a swag the way they stole theirs.
I agree that I don't have the right to distribute someone else's copyrighted material against their wishes- I'm not one of those "information wants to be free" radicals. I'm even willing to admit it's open to debate wether I have the right to space- and time-shift copyrighted materials I have legitimate license to. But I still have two fundamental, basic problems with DRM.
The first is do I have the right to produce- and distribute under terms of my choosing- original work of my own? Me, Brian Hurt, a person who doesn't have a huge law department and several elected officials in my pocket. If you say yes, then there is no technical way to prevent piracy. If you say no, then freedom of speech has gone the way of the dodo, and democracy is following closely behind. Unfortunately, the media conglomerates have painted themselves into the corner of demanding that the mere possibility of piracy needs to be eliminated. Which is obvious- they sole value-add is distribution (especially the music industry). The internet is nothing if not an efficient distribution mechanism. And while the future may be good for artists and writers as a whole, it sucks if your sole purpose for existance just went away. I'm just not willing to sacrifice democracy on the alter of protecting the buggy whip manufacturers.
The second problem is the persistance of culture. All means of inscribing information degrades- what the computer programmers call "bit rot" is a fundamental function of entropy. Even words carved into stone slowly abrade away. Most of our current forms of distributing information have a life expectancy of at most decades. The earliest CDs are already degrading into unplayability. Content only survives the millenia if it is copied. The works of Plato, Aristotle, etc. only survive to this date only because they were copied.
If we eliminate the ability/right to copy our current works, we run the risk of waking up one day to discover we've lost whole eras of our culture. It will make the burning of the library of Alexandria look like a small mistake in comparison. Unlike Alexandria, it won't happen overnight. Certain titles, certain works, will simply become more and more rare. The death of the last dodo wasn't marked at the time- it was just a while later that someone looked around and said "hey, wait a minute- what happened to all the dodos?"
Speaking of Disney classics- is it still possible to get a legal copy of "Song of the South"? Is it comming out on DVD?
Unfortunately, this debate is not going on- the decisions are simply being handed down the way the big corporations, who don't care a whit about democracy or preserving culture, but instead care only about profits, want.
I generally consider myself a generous friend. I have had, howver, people take advantage of my generosity. When this happens, I start saying "no". Some wake up and stop taking my generosity for granted. Others haven't forgiven me for "failing" them. But, in my experience, saying "no" is the only way to stop people from taking advantage of you.
As a liberal, I've been doing the Democratic party the favor of voting for them fairly consistantly. Consistantly enough that the Democratic party has started taking our votes for granted. The Democrats court "swing" voters- those who regularly tell the Democrats "no"- with great alacrity. Every election is full of talk of how the Democrats are going to woo the soccer moms or NASCAR dads. Liberals are expected to show up, vote the way we're told to, and not complain when the party does absolutely nothing to reciprocate. Can't we see how fundamentally important it is for the party to pander entirely to the swing voters?
Consider this: Nader voters are routinely blamed for putting Bush into power. But what about the people who voted for Bush? Heavens no- we can't blame them. Then they might not vote for us next time. But the liberals have an obligation to vote for Democrats no matter what the Democrats do.
This is even more pathetic when you consider how effective the Democrats have been at wooing the swing voters.
Well, Democrats, this is your 2004 wake up call. You've hit the snooze button at least twice so far- in 2000 and 2002. But I hate being taken advantage of. It stops now. Get used to the word "no" because you're going to be hearing it a lot from me.
And I refuse to accept any blame or guilt for what Bush has or may do. I didn't vote for the moron, nor am I going to- wether I vote for Kerry or no. Blame for the Bush presidency should lie squarely on the shoulders of the people who voted for him- where it belongs. If the Democrats want me to vote for them again, they can woo me, just like they woo swing voters.
They know where to find me. I'll be over here on the left.
Disney has signed on to Microsoft's DRM initiative, along with Time-Warner-AOL-We're-Beatrice. Disney wants to make sure no one can pirate it's content, like it pirated the content of Hans Christian Anderson, the Brothers Grim, and (it appears) Pixar. They don't want anyone else to be able to steal a swag the way they stole theirs.
I agree that I don't have the right to distribute someone else's copyrighted material against their wishes- I'm not one of those "information wants to be free" radicals. I'm even willing to admit it's open to debate wether I have the right to space- and time-shift copyrighted materials I have legitimate license to. But I still have two fundamental, basic problems with DRM.
The first is do I have the right to produce- and distribute under terms of my choosing- original work of my own? Me, Brian Hurt, a person who doesn't have a huge law department and several elected officials in my pocket. If you say yes, then there is no technical way to prevent piracy. If you say no, then freedom of speech has gone the way of the dodo, and democracy is following closely behind. Unfortunately, the media conglomerates have painted themselves into the corner of demanding that the mere possibility of piracy needs to be eliminated. Which is obvious- they sole value-add is distribution (especially the music industry). The internet is nothing if not an efficient distribution mechanism. And while the future may be good for artists and writers as a whole, it sucks if your sole purpose for existance just went away. I'm just not willing to sacrifice democracy on the alter of protecting the buggy whip manufacturers.
The second problem is the persistance of culture. All means of inscribing information degrades- what the computer programmers call "bit rot" is a fundamental function of entropy. Even words carved into stone slowly abrade away. Most of our current forms of distributing information have a life expectancy of at most decades. The earliest CDs are already degrading into unplayability. Content only survives the millenia if it is copied. The works of Plato, Aristotle, etc. only survive to this date only because they were copied.
If we eliminate the ability/right to copy our current works, we run the risk of waking up one day to discover we've lost whole eras of our culture. It will make the burning of the library of Alexandria look like a small mistake in comparison. Unlike Alexandria, it won't happen overnight. Certain titles, certain works, will simply become more and more rare. The death of the last dodo wasn't marked at the time- it was just a while later that someone looked around and said "hey, wait a minute- what happened to all the dodos?"
Speaking of Disney classics- is it still possible to get a legal copy of "Song of the South"? Is it comming out on DVD?
Unfortunately, this debate is not going on- the decisions are simply being handed down the way the big corporations, who don't care a whit about democracy or preserving culture, but instead care only about profits, want.
I agree that I don't have the right to distribute someone else's copyrighted material against their wishes- I'm not one of those "information wants to be free" radicals. I'm even willing to admit it's open to debate wether I have the right to space- and time-shift copyrighted materials I have legitimate license to. But I still have two fundamental, basic problems with DRM.
The first is do I have the right to produce- and distribute under terms of my choosing- original work of my own? Me, Brian Hurt, a person who doesn't have a huge law department and several elected officials in my pocket. If you say yes, then there is no technical way to prevent piracy. If you say no, then freedom of speech has gone the way of the dodo, and democracy is following closely behind. Unfortunately, the media conglomerates have painted themselves into the corner of demanding that the mere possibility of piracy needs to be eliminated. Which is obvious- they sole value-add is distribution (especially the music industry). The internet is nothing if not an efficient distribution mechanism. And while the future may be good for artists and writers as a whole, it sucks if your sole purpose for existance just went away. I'm just not willing to sacrifice democracy on the alter of protecting the buggy whip manufacturers.
The second problem is the persistance of culture. All means of inscribing information degrades- what the computer programmers call "bit rot" is a fundamental function of entropy. Even words carved into stone slowly abrade away. Most of our current forms of distributing information have a life expectancy of at most decades. The earliest CDs are already degrading into unplayability. Content only survives the millenia if it is copied. The works of Plato, Aristotle, etc. only survive to this date only because they were copied.
If we eliminate the ability/right to copy our current works, we run the risk of waking up one day to discover we've lost whole eras of our culture. It will make the burning of the library of Alexandria look like a small mistake in comparison. Unlike Alexandria, it won't happen overnight. Certain titles, certain works, will simply become more and more rare. The death of the last dodo wasn't marked at the time- it was just a while later that someone looked around and said "hey, wait a minute- what happened to all the dodos?"
Speaking of Disney classics- is it still possible to get a legal copy of "Song of the South"? Is it comming out on DVD?
Unfortunately, this debate is not going on- the decisions are simply being handed down the way the big corporations, who don't care a whit about democracy or preserving culture, but instead care only about profits, want.
